When We Were One: Stories of World War II [Hardcover]

W.c. Heinz (Author), W. C. Heinz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2002

W. C. Heinz is one of the great sports writers of the past half-century, but few people know that before he began his sportswriting career he served as a war correspondent for the New York Sun. No less an authority than Stephen E. Ambrose has said of Heinz that both he and Ernie Pyle were the two best journalists to cover World War II. Now for the first time ever, Heinz's finest reporting both during and after the war is collected in one volume. From a first-person account of the scene aboard the U.S.S. Nevada during D-Day (the very same ship that plied the waters at Pearl Harbor) to a six-part series on conducting a night attack to an account of the shooting of several German spies, we are given an up-close-and-personal chronicle of the action by a reporter who was in the thick of it all. Few writers conveyed as vividly as Heinz the heroic efforts of GI's in the face of battle; the sheer humanity, humor, and courage displayed by so many. When We Were All One is a superb collection of war reporting and commentary that ranks with the finest ever assembled on any war.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In When We Were One W.C. Heinz (who cowrote M.A.S.H. under the pseudonym Richard Hooker) has amassed 21 of his short pieces about World War II (and its aftermath), many of them originally written for The New York Sun newspaper. Heinz includes dispatches from the battleship Nevada during the D-Day invasion and several that follow a company of infantrymen during the Battle of the Bulge. The collection is uneven. Heinz's prose suffers from Hemingway envy and too many of the stories suffer from a lack of context. They would have been greatly enhanced by the author's annotations and expansion. There are two notable exceptions: one the account of a post-battle emotional breakdown by one Capt. Joe Dawson in front of his men; the other a moment-by-moment portrait of the field execution, by firing squad, of three German spies. --H. O'Billovich

From Library Journal

Heinz is a longtime sportswriter and author of The Professional as well as a coauthor of MASH. During World War II, he was a young correspondent for the New York Sun, and this collection of his war pieces begins with his personal observations aboard the USS Nevada. The battleship had been restored after the attack at Pearl Harbor and was now supporting the Allied invasion on D-Day. From D-Day, Heinz continues his war coverage with stories from the Siegfried line and Aachen. Heinz was one of the few reporters who witnessed the execution of three German spies captured after the Battle of the Bulge, an experience he writes about with clarity and controlled emotion. In his of-the-moment dispatches, Heinz does a good job of telling the story of the war and profiling its fighting men and scenes of horror. His narrative brings all the chaos of battle to the reader. In the newspaper dispatches, of course, there is little room for historical background. But the book also includes several longer magazine pieces, most memorably an account of returning years later to the Normandy beaches with a D-Day hero and his son. This book of wartime observations will be riveting for the interested reader. Recommended for all public libraries and academic libraries with historical collections. Mark Ellis, Albany State Univ. Lib., GA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; First Edition edition (May 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306811154
• ISBN-13: 978-0306811159
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,122,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not an Ernie Pyle but very worthwhile reading, March 15, 2003

By 

Dale Lane (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When We Were One: Stories of World War II (Hardcover)

This is a remarkable recently published book of short stories gleaned from this ETO war correspondents dispatches during WWII. The book is organized into 3 sections: Dispatches from 1944, 1945 and after the war is over.
The "Dispatches" sections sometimes seem repetitive until you realize that they were published in a serial format, so each had to stand on it's own yet they were a continuing story. So the author had to "recap" sometimes what had happened so a new reader would be able to follow along.
The "After the War" section is presented with current narration in regular type and the wartime writing in italics. It is a nice way to "flashback" while the author is revisiting locations that had wartime memories to him. Some of these were written for publication in national magazines in the 50's and 60's.
I especially enjoyed the authors relating a visit to Point du Hoc in 1954 with the Commanding Officer of the Ranger Battalion that assaulted the cliffs there on D-Day, James Rudder, and Rudder's 14-year-old son. His final story ends with a sad poignancy that is suitable for a book of wartime remembrances. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in WWII history.

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, August 9, 2008

By 

Douglas Jasie (Fort Lauderdale, FL.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When We Were One: Stories of World War II (Hardcover)

The late Bill Heinz was a great writer. I read this book straight through without stopping. He will be greatly missed.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Rough Read, May 15, 2006

By 

Ed Cyzewski "Author of Coffeehouse Theology, ... (Arlington, VT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When We Were One: Stories Of World War II (Paperback)

This is a rough book to read if you're expecting a reasonably well-constructed narrative like Ambrose or Ryan. If you're looking for some first-hand accounts of action, this book may do the trick. I just found his over-reliance on infinitives "to be very hard to read."